Sunday, 19 April 2026

Billy Summers by Stephen King

Description from Amazon:

The perfect crime doesn’t exist. The perfect getaway . . . that’s another story.

Billy Summers is a killer for hire. He’s among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet who can blend into any neighbourhood and disappear after the shot is taken. But he’ll only agree to a contract if the target is a truly bad guy.

Now Billy wants out. But first he’s offered one final job - an offer which is just too big to refuse.

As the days count down to the hit, Billy senses something is wrong. He doesn’t yet know just how wrong, or about the woman who will help him try to set things right.

Part thriller, part war story, part lyrical portrait of small-town America, Billy Summers is about a good man in a bad job, with one last shot at redemption.

 

I absolutely loved this. It’s quite different from his usual fare, and I thought the nod to The Shining was a fun addition.

 

Billy’s job and the people involved is laid out nicely, and even though what he is about to do is so completely wrong, you are cheering him on. The book is quite thick, so as the job is put into action, there seem to be a lot of pages over. Enter the second portion, which, while it has a different element to it, ties it all together so well that by the end the emotions are a rollercoaster.

 

Billy takes you through parts of his life in wars through memories and the book he is writing, and I thought the way he writes his book using his simple voice and then his usual one read really well. There are cringy parts and his first interaction with Alice as well as some of the decisions he makes about her are downright questionable. But I guess that also shows how people make decisions and how wrong they can be.

 

Many won’t like this book based on decisions made and the political jabs, but I really enjoyed it!




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